well i just got a 1988 trans am GTA and the guy that had it before me told me that the headlights quit going up and down so he disconnected the motor while they were up, he didnt tell me that he removed the wiring to the motor completely, which seems to be the case. there doesnt seem to be any wiring to plug the headlight motor into. Can somebody help me out here?
i need to know where to look for the wiring possibly or to atleast find out where the guy cut the wires off at .thanks

 

are you sure that they're cut off and not jsut tucked away in there somewhere? When I bought my 91 bird the woman I bought it off of disconnected the driver side motor and tucked all teh wiring away so good that I ended up taking the housing off the headlight to find it all.

 

ive looked around closely and havent found anything. but where exactly does the motor wire plug in at? sorry but this is my 1st 3rd gen so im not all that educated on them

 

there should be a 2 wires coming out of the back of the motor with a connector at the end. likewise, soemwhere nearby there should be a mate for that connector nearby. What year do you have? 82-84 are a little different than the 85-92.

 

1988 GTA

 

Then you've got the motors that are easy to work with. they're only 2 wire and realy basic. the 82-84s have 3 wires and are more complicated. If you still can't find the wires on your motors I'll see if I can get some pictures. the wires should be visible without removing anything. They'll be coming out of the back of the motor toward the bottom.

EDIT: here's a picture of the motors out of the car. you can see where the wires come out at, and what they look like.

 

alright ill go check it out

 

ok, miss understanding....i know where wires are on the headlight motor, but i mean where do those wires plug in at?

 

There should be another connector that looks like the connector coming from the motor. it'll be coming out of the bundle of wires that runs along the top of the core support.

 

ok, thanks for your help, i finally got them connected. but one more question, neither motor works correctly but they both spin. do those rebuild kits work well or not? like this one:http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/87-92...QQcmdZViewItem

 

yup, the rebuild kits do work. although, I've never used any of the ones on ebay. If you want to buy a kit without worrying about if it's good or not, then get it from
Top Down Solutions. I've used them before and I know they work.

 

well i think im going to try the one on ebay, the guy has all great feedback and its alot cheaper

 

goodluck. I'm sure the rebuild kit will work fine. just one piece of advice from all the times that I've rebuilt these motors. Use plenty of white lithium grease on all the gears in the motors when you're rebuilding em. I've also found that the paste in the tube works better for this application then the airasole spray.

 

ok, thanks alot for all of your help, the internet needs more people like yourself ;]

 

and also, Welcome to the board. there are plenty of people here willing to help you with any problem you may have.

 

I have the same issue - headlights will only come up on occasion. But even if you open them manually they tend to just fall back down on a bump

The guy I got the car from has a couple of headlight assemblies I may go get tomorrow. Although, unlike when I was younger, I do avoid hack jobs - but I'm not beyond tearing into something and attempting to get it to work right. I mean, heck - force it, if it breaks, it needed replacing anyway.

But - to my main question... If the headlights don't want to open (I know the lever and all is intact as they attempt to open), will the rebuild kits take care of the issue always or is it possible something else is hosed up in there?

 

Is your motor spinning and just not coming up? or is it not spinning at all? If it's spinning and not coming up then you can just toss a rebuild kit into it with new bushings and it should work just fine. if they're not even spinning then chances are that the motors are burnt out. Before I rebuilt the motors in my 91 they would drop back down when I hit a bump if the actuator arm wasn't all the way back in the locked position.

 

Yep, they are spinning.

Passenger side spins - nothing happens. Driver's side will come up occasionally. So no doubt it is too. But the passenger side did fall back down after I pulled it up manually - but, I pulled fairly gently on it, so I may well have not gotten it up in a locked position.

Thanks, I may well go with the rebuild kit. I figure if I'm going to dump time into this thing, I may as well do things right

I did enough hack jobs when I was younger.... well... at least I never caught a car on fire~

 

There's something you can always be proud of. lol. good luck with the rebuild.

 

haha, thanks

Well, I plan on doing things right this time around. Live and learn

 

i rebuilt the motors using the ebay parts and they work great now, they go up and down just as they are meant to. very pleased and its alot cheaper than top down solutions, granted that you dont get new gaskets and you have to supply your own grease but i was able to re-use the old gaskets just fine.

 

good to hear it all worked out for ya. I actually just picked up a new trans am and teh headlight motors needed rebuilt...but I couldn't find the rebuild kits that I've had lying around. and I really wanted to get these things going...so I looked around my house and found some glue sticks....yeah, glue sticks...they were the same diameter as the bushings so I tossed them in the motors and they work great! They're going up and down evenly and smoothly.

 

way to improvise, i actually thought the little bushings looked alot like glue sticks for a hot glue gun, but never thought to really use them.

 

well, for those that read this....yes glue sticks for a hot glue gun will work....If they fail, I'll post how long they last. it's been 3 days though and they're still working great.

 

5 days....that's how long they lasted...lol. Just went outside and started up the TA and flipped the switch and only 1 headlight came up. The driver side light is still coming up just fine with no snags or delays...so part of me is thinking that there maybe soemthing else at work. I rebuilt the motors at the same time so it seems strange that only one would fail. I'll open it up in the next couple days to see what went wrong.

 

that sucks, these things arent fun to take out and put back in, i guess you might get good at it after a while....

 

lol yeah. I can pull one out rebuild it and put it back in in about 15 to 20 minutes. I rebuilt these things soooooo many times. I drove around for a while in my 91 with one light up, then I rebuilt it and a lot of people noticed and started having me rebuild theirs. I've done birds, probes, fieros, you name it.